


e-GAD

by toskliviydays



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Other, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:58:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toskliviydays/pseuds/toskliviydays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When his thoughts became roaring waves across his consciousness, drowning everything out and threatening to burst through his skin, he erected dams and bridges of steady, soothing rhythms that calmed the storm and drew the waves back from the shores. Sometimes the storm blew away on the wind. Sometimes, it returned with violence."</p><p>Snapshots. His anxiety grows with him, and with the people in his life. That's not necessarily a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	e-GAD

**Author's Note:**

> e-GAD lol get it bc generalized anxiety disorder
> 
> lol
> 
> i relate to tsukishima kei on a lot of levels

He started out clutching his brother’s sleeve.

Akiteru was everything to him. He was an inspiration, for one, but that was much the same for any younger sibling to their older, looking on with awe because everything they did seemed so much more impressive for the simple fact _they_ were doing it.

But Kei had always felt his heart clench at odd times; times that, as he grew older, he knew were uncalled for. He hated when people closed in on him, hated when people asked things of him when he was not prepared, hated what he could not control or distance himself from. Storms. Planes overhead. He hated needing to feel protected.

But that was exactly how Akiteru made him feel, more often than not. Coddling from his parents felt suffocating— he was too old for it from his mother and he loathed to seem a disappointment to his father— but from his brother it felt… okay. Something he couldn’t reproach himself for wanting because Akiteru was cool, he was his _brother_ , he could write Kei off so easily as annoying or clingy or pathetic but he _didn’t_. And that made the difference, maybe. His parents were obligated to take care of him. Akiteru was not.

So it never felt strange when Akiteru took Kei’s hand in public, left his hand on his head or his shoulder as years went on and he became conscious of possibly embarrassing his younger brother. It never felt strange when Akiteru made excuses for him hidden by suggestions, by deflection, giving Kei a chance to back out or collect himself when people sprang decisions or expectations on him. It never felt strange when the power went out and the world was plunged into shouts of violence from the heavens and Akiteru quietly made his way to Kei’s room, offering with a voice soothing and calm and entirely unassuming (he never made Kei feel like he ought to be embarrassed) to let Kei come to his room, to tell stories or to play games by candlelight. It was a sleepover rather than a cowardly retreat, precious time spent with the person he admired rather than comfort for a child too old to receive it. He knew other younger siblings did not receive such privilege. He felt special. And never strange.

But when he learned Akiteru had been deceiving him the entire time, it felt like his skin was falling off like a sickly shell, like he could not be comfortable in this body that had believed heart and soul every word his brother spoke. He knew it was unfair, maybe, but Akiteru had been everything that felt safe.

It never occurred to him just how alien he felt until his brother shattered his illusion of protection, the buffer between him and a world that was not his friend gone. He couldn’t bring his fragile child’s heart to forgive that.

* * *

When people pressed in closely, he could not keep the dark look of disgust off his face. Sometimes this frankness bought him a thin veil of distance between himself and those offended. Sometimes it did not.

When his thoughts became roaring waves across his consciousness, drowning everything out and threatening to burst through his skin, he erected dams and bridges of steady, soothing rhythms that calmed the storm and drew the waves back from the shores. Sometimes the storm blew away on the wind. Sometimes, it returned with violence

There were so many little things that agitated him, frightened him if only with the thought they might make him panic, and he hated it. _He hated it_. He had better things to do, like study, like prove to himself that the sport that made his brother a liar wasn't worth nearly so much.

But the shrill ringing of terror that thrummed near-silently beneath his skin felt so much more menacing without Akiteru to hold the world at bay for just a few moments longer. He was horrified by his strangeness that was evident to him now, horrified by the thought of it seeping up to the surface, and so he erected wall after wall and reminded himself that if his classmates did not like him then at least it would be by his own doing, not the black blood choking his veins.

* * *

When Yamaguchi began crowding into his life, he did not pay it mind. He was like the bell on a cat’s collar ringing against that of a tall catholic church; irrelevant, hardly notable. Yamaguchi Tadashi did not truly warrant his attention, and so Kei barely gave it. He did not need to be rude; Yamaguchi would leave on his own.

But he did not. He crowded in, earnest and fumbling, unassuming enough that Kei did not feel the thrum of anxiety until they were too close, too entwined, but even then it was muted; thrumming, distressing, but not threatening to break through. It did not steal the breath from him, as crowding was wont to do, but instead reminded him to breathe in, out, to be conscious of the fact. He refused to give this much thought.

Yamaguchi was not put-off by his rude remarks, acted as if his excessive need for control over a situation— acquired however was easiest, was necessary— was not overbearing but admirable. He did not find it pathetic when Kei stopped breathing on the train or when his words faltered just slightly when people caught him off guard, when he tented his hands defensively or when he studied, studied, _studied_ , made sure he was prepared and made sure that there was a wall of knowledge to protect him from the unexpected.

He did not expect Kei to be anything other than he was, and while Kei did not understand— was distressed, a bit, by how highly Yamaguchi regarded him, as if he were not some strange creature that spooked at unnecessary things and shoved the world away from himself like a frightened child— he did not fight it. He did not miss the fact that forced control was something Yamaguchi wished for himself, did not miss the way Yamaguchi hid behind Kei’s walls as often was Kei himself did. It made him feel... a little useful.

He and Yamaguchi were not good together. They did not communicate with words and did not know one other well enough to go without them, misunderstandings trailing doggedly at their heels. Kei drew out frantic, approval-seeking behavior from Yamaguchi and he, in turn, robbed Kei of the need to ever truly reconcile his behavior.

But they were not bad, either. They both needed something to cling to. Together, neither felt quite so strange or so alone.

* * *

When Yamaguchi asked why he kept his music so at the ready, Kei answered that sometimes it got loud. Sometimes, it was good to reorient himself.

He could tell Yamaguchi felt sub-par after that— upset, maybe, that he could not assist— but a week later he found a link to a playlist in his emails, a small “it’s different, but these help me focus, so maybe you’ll like them. or maybe not!” and all ten tracks sounded so much like Yamaguchi idly chatting at him through the dull thrum of music from his headphones, words indistinguishable but still there, meant to communicate not through the words themselves but by the fact they were said at all.

So when the panic thrummed lightly beneath his skin more as a reminder than a threat, Kei let the music play quietly from his headphones where they rested around his neck. He tried to keep at bay the satisfaction he felt at Yamaguchi’s smile.

Yamaguchi, for his part, said nothing. He might have shouted to the heavens the most menial, obnoxious facts about Kei— almost as if to convince everyone to like Kei as much as he did or to act as some  too-enthusiastic public relations representative for a person too busy to worry about anyone else— but he always stayed quiet when it came to how he felt about _them_ ; Y+T, the most basic equation. Maybe he didn’t want to make Kei uncomfortable, or maybe he didn't want to _assume_. But what else was there to do?

Kei was too embarrassed by the simple act of acknowledgement to say much else. Even if he wasn't, what more could he say? Acknowledgement, tacit appreciation, that was the best he could _do;_ words about himself just dried up in a throat too parched with hesitation. On the rare occasion he'd tried, he hazarded to think Yamaguchi maybe understood. It wasn't much, but he hoped it was enough.

* * *

When he heard Suga’s words, years later, about knowing the plight of cowards, he paused. It was for only a moment, just long enough for his blank stare to catch Yamaguchi’s attention and give him cause to worry, for his expression to draw up in mild concern. While Yamaguchi knew Kei was fine, he still wondered, and Kei valued that. Yet as the moment passed and they continued on, he did nothing to reassure Yamaguchi but make a quiet noise of acknowledgment at the back of his throat.

He was a coward, too, he knew. He just hid it better.

* * *

The storm struck harder than any others had all year, trapping Yamaguchi at the Tsukishima household.

It made Kei nervous, made electric panic strike through his veins as it did through the sky.

He hated himself for letting storms still upset him, no longer a child with an excuse, but since he had shoved Akiteru away he had contented himself to sleepless nights and silent heaving. He’d become accustomed to swallowing his panic alone. But he could not afford that, not if Yamaguchi stayed, and there was no way he could convince anybody to make him sleep anywhere but Kei’s room.

They all could tell he was antsy, snappy and distracted, but no one had anything to say on the matter. After dinner, they were sent up to Kei’s room, and he wondered how long it would take Yamaguchi to get to sleep so he could hide in the bathroom without questions behind sent his way.

But of course, _of course_ , there was no control when your body oozed panic from every pore, no walls to protect you when you really, truly wanted them. That wasn’t at all how it worked. And though Yamaguchi did so well at keeping his damn mouth shut when it mattered, he could not help but worry and fret when Kei found himself gasping for air, clutching his arms as the thunder crashed like bombs and the wind sounded like helicopters spiraling out of control and the rain pounded down with the weight of the world and threatened to make the house collapse around them. He didn’t want to panic. He knew he shouldn’t. There was no reason to. The storm probably wasn’t even that bad.

But he couldn’t help it.

And he couldn’t help the angry tears that pricked at his eyes in humiliation and he couldn’t help the way he gasped even as he commanded himself to draw in normal breaths and he couldn’t help the way he hated himself for every moment he could not pull back together.

Yamaguchi was nothing if not earnest. His voice might have been tinged with a panic of his own but he did not hesitate to ground himself, to kneel down on the bed beside Kei and asked quietly, “Is it okay if I touch you?”

It was such a baffling question. Kei couldn’t even think what it might mean. But he nodded-- twice, small-- and tensed with a tremble as Yamaguchi’s palms touched lightly down on his shoulders, warm and careful and steady. His eyes were squeezed shut and his face was buried in his knees and he couldn’t figure out what Yamaguchi was _doing_ but the sensation made his attention stutter, reel with a violence that knocked loose a full breath from his lungs. He felt Yamaguchi’s palms pause before they ran very slowly, very gently down the curve of his shoulders where another full breath was hiding. And with that Yamaguchi shifted so he was behind him, rubbing shapes into his shoulders and searching for the breath that had scattered on the wind, hands not _releasing_ him but reminding him of where he was, who he was with. Yamaguchi did not seem to think he was strange, not now, and maybe Kei didn’t either.

He focused on the warmth on his shoulders and the silence behind him that felt like a physical wall against the noise outside, the way Yamaguchi was acting as an anchor and the fact he hadn’t felt this comforted since he was a child. Yamaguchi did not speak, but that was fine. He was not his brother or his headphones and it would be unfair to expect him to do any more than he did or to expect him to be any more than he was. And here he was.

Panic attacks could not be stopped so much as ridden out, like the flu or the very storms that could trigger them, and so they sat like that for what felt like six hours but was really only one, quiet as the heavens calmed and the breath returned steadily to Kei’s lungs. He did not unbury his face from his knees and he did not speak, loath to break whatever was happening here just yet, but his shoulders were not so tense and he did not tremble with the toll of it. Yamaguchi, likewise, let his hands rest lightly on Kei’s shoulderblades, tired from the continued ministrations but unwilling to pull away in the fear of robbing any comfort he could have possibly bestowed. Kei was grateful.

“Sorry,” he said, eventually. It was not a weak or breathy word, as direct and blunt as he ever could be, and he hoped this was indication enough that however long the panic lingered in his skin, its barrage on his body had passed. Even if the storm returned with equal fervor, he doubted it would be so bad again that night. He sighed into his knees and felt sleep tug at his eyes. He was exhausted.

But Yamaguchi’s hands traveled slowly, intentionally-- offering time for Kei to tell him to stop-- down from his shoulders and across his middle into a light hug, just as warm and just as soft, if somewhat awkward with the tense, hesitant way he offered it. Kei’s mouth pulled upward out of a grimace.

He could tell Yamaguchi was trying hard to settle on something to say, but all that eventually came out was, “it’s okay” and “we should sleep.”

So Kei nodded, sighed, rubbed at his eyes as Yamaguchi pulled away and peeled away the covers for him. He stared for a moment as Yamaguchi moved to get up and set out his futon-- Kei hadn’t had the time to, before-- and he tried to say, “wait” or “don’t bother,” but words were elusive and all he could do was reach out and touch Yamaguchi’s wrist, tug him back even as he refused to meet his gaze. But Yamaguchi understood; he had become so accustomed to listening when kei wasn’t speaking-- it made him feel bad, suddenly, because that meant something-- and so he smiled and said, gently, “Okay. I’m going to wash my face first. I’ll be right back.” And Kei let out a breath that was not quite a laugh because, yes, right, of course. Yamaguchi always washed his face extra well before bed, so concerned was he with his complexion.

When he came back and settled down beneath the covers, his back turned to Kei’s but also flush against it, he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do to return the favor. They were not good for each other, but they were not bad. That’s how it had always been. But now Yamaguchi was… he _was_ good, was far _too good_ for him. And he would continue to be. Because while Tsukishima Kei stood still, Yamaguchi Tadashi moved forward, and he did not know how to reconcile that.


End file.
